


Talk of the Town

by norah



Category: Cars (2006)
Genre: Disney, M/M, Pixar, anthropomorfic - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-24
Updated: 2008-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 04:38:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norah/pseuds/norah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone noticed Sarge was different when he returned to Radiator Springs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talk of the Town

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks above all to my stellar betas and history-pickers, Grace and Dine.
> 
> This is _so_ not my fault. This pairing is practically _canon_; Disney even packages them together in the "Movie Moments" series of die-cast cars. *adjusts tinhat* They are clearly MFEO, people.

Everyone noticed Sarge was different when he returned to Radiator Springs.

He didn't look different, not so's you'd notice - no bullet holes or missing parts or anything that would let you know he'd gone overseas. He came home, and moved back in with the General and Mrs. Carter, and he still said a polite hello to folks if he drove past them on the street, and helped out at the surplus like he had before.

Only not like before, and they whispered about it over a quart or two at the V8 Café, like they whispered about anything that changed. They told each other how he didn't go out with his old friends, how he stayed to himself since he'd gotten back. How he was quieter. And of course nobody talked about it when Flo was at the bar, but sometimes when she went in back they'd whisper about how he never came around for a drink, and it must be hard on poor Sarge to come back and find that she'd married Ramón. Only Fillmore said, if he was around to hear them, "Naw, man, he's not really any different." But that was Fillmore, and God only knew what he'd been putting in that organic fuel of his, so nobody listened.

The thing was, Fillmore was right. Sarge _wasn't_ really any different.

They were remembering the Sarge who was captain of the high-school cross-country team and went out cruising with Flo. The Sarge who led the fundraising drives for the JROTC and flew the big American flag off his back bumper in the Independence Day parade. They remembered the General's son. And to be fair, he'd been that kid for a long time. Part of him still was.

He'd rolled into Radiator Springs with his family in '57, just eight years old and the spitting image of the General. They'd bought up the old Ford place and turned it into an army surplus store, and enrolled young Sarge in the local elementary. The town took to them right away. Sarge's mother was a real asset to the local PTA, and her homemade air fresheners always took first prize at the fair. The General quickly became a familiar face around town and at the V8 Café. And Sarge, well, he was just a real sweet kid. Good at school, polite, never any trouble.

Not like their neighbors. Not that they were _trouble_, precisely, but the they just weren't like everyone else in Radiator Springs. Nobody had ever seen Fillmore's father, for one thing, and Ms. Vaughn, who taught history and music at the high school in Moriarty, never talked about him. They'd been living there, in the little cottage at the edge of town, for several years by the time the Carters arrived, and everyone knew them - everyone knew everyone in Radiator Springs - but they didn't go to church on Sundays, and they didn't go to the track or cross-country meets. Rumor had it Ms. Vaughn’s parents were foreign, come over from Germany after the war. She wore plain, practical paint, and her tires didn't always match. Neither did Fillmore's.

* * *

"Your tires don't match," was the first thing Sarge said to Fillmore, a month after the Carters had moved in. He was playing with his matchbox cars in the weedy patch between their yards, racing them up and down with great concentration. Fillmore, who had come over to watch, shrugged.

"So? My mom says it's what's on the inside that matters." He watched Sarge for a few more minutes as he energetically crashed a Cadillac into a Mustang. "Can I play, too?"

"You can have the Plymouth," Sarge said, ungracefully, pointing to a boxy car with peeling paint.

"Hey, thanks!" Fillmore made _"vroom, vroom"_ noises as he nudged the little car along. "I'm Fillmore, what's your name?"

"Sarge," said Sarge. "Short for Sergeant, like my grandpa. My dad just calls me Sarge, though, and so does my mom unless she's really mad, and then she calls me Sergeant Joseph Carter. That usually means a spanking."

Fillmore looked thoughtful. "My mom doesn't spank me."

"What about your Dad?"

"He doesn't live with us anymore."

"Huh," Sarge said. "Wanna play 'pile-up?'"

"Sure," Fillmore said. "My mom doesn't let me play car crashes at home."

"Your mom sounds weird."

Fillmore scuffed a threadbare tire in the dirt. "She's not," he said, unconvincingly.

"That boy's mother is a Pinko," the General declared that night over dinner.

"Now, General," said Mrs. Carter. "Ms. Vaughn is our neighbor, and I'm glad to see that Sarge is making new friends here."

"Have you seen her bumper stickers?"

"Yes, I have, and I know how you feel about the ACLU, but until she comes over here trying to sign you up as a Soviet spy, I'd like you to treat them like neighbors, not Communist sympathizers."

The General glared at Mrs. Carter.

"Who's a spy?" Sarge asked excitedly. "Remember my decoder ring I got in my coolant? I could help!"

"Nobody's a spy, dear," his mother said. The General huffed and rolled off to the living room to read the paper.

* * *

It was a weird friendship, but kids are kids. Nobody thought much of it. Sarge and Fillmore ran around town together, drank candy-colored antifreezes at the V8 Café together, and got dirty in each other’s backyards. Sarge went over to Fillmore’s for dinner sometimes, but Ms. Vaughn made weird health food stuff all the time, so they mostly hung out at Sarge’s house. Sarge’s mother got used to setting out an extra place for Fillmore.

The General grumbled, but Mrs. Carter only said, "Let them play, dear. They're just children, and I'm sure they will grow out of it eventually."

He scowled out the window, where he could see Fillmore laughing as Sarge attempted to jump a mud puddle and fell short, splattering them both liberally with grime. "Damn fool kid is a bad influence on my boy."

But they did grow out of it eventually. There was no big fight, nothing like that. They just got older.

Junior high came along, and Sarge got into sports and started helping out at the store. Fillmore made new friends, too, friends who were a little more patient and less snappish than Sarge. They still talked, but it wasn't like before.

In high school, Sarge joined the JROTC. Fillmore joined the Students for a Democratic Society.

Sarge went to cross-country meets and JROTC orienteering competitions and came back with medals and trophies.

Fillmore went to rock concerts and political rallies, and came back with flowers and stuff painted on his sides and a zoned-out blissful smile.

They didn’t have much to say to each other anymore.

* * *

Loud, angry honking was coming from next door. Honking and shouting. Fillmore was out back, looking at the stars. The moon was half-full, and Mars was retrograde; it was a good time for meditation and deeper self-reflection. Fillmore squinted at the Little Dipper. The honking next door went on and then stopped, abruptly; moments later, Sarge peeled out the back door, red in the face and kicking at rocks.

One of the rocks glanced off of Fillmore’s front fender. “Hey, man, you could put someone’s eye out like that,” Fillmore protested mildly.

Sarge looked up. “Oh, sorry, Fillmore. I didn’t see you.”

“It’s cool.” Fillmore shrugged. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Sarge kicked another rock, viciously, back in the direction of his own house this time. “I just kind of hate my dad sometimes.”

Fillmore nodded sagely. “That’s a bummer. You wanna hang out here for a while? Just chill?”

“Your mom won’t mind? It’s kind of late.”

“Naw, she’s gone to Albuquerque for some kind of rally.” Ms. Vaughn was always going off to rallies. “We could raid her private oil stash, if you want; she thinks I don’t know where it is.”

“Sure she won’t notice?”

“Naw, she doesn't pay attention. I do this all the time, it’s cool.”

Sarge looked indecisive for a moment, and then nodded.

A few hours later he was still nodding, owlishly now, as Fillmore rambled on about the Kennedy assassination. “All I’m saying, is that if there was a second shooter, then it all makes sense. It’s all a cover-up, man.” He burped. “The Establishment is keeping the American people in the dark.”

Sarge snorted. “My dad says that’s bullshit." He frowned. "Then again, my dad thinks the country is being overrun by ‘pinko commie faggots.’”

Fillmore blinked at him. “Sarge, man, I kind of thought you agreed with him on that point. I’m kinda surprised you’re even out here talking to me, actually.”

Sarge looked down. “Nah. That’s actually what we got in a fight about. I mean, I’m still a patriot, you know I am, but he gets a little oiled up and he starts ranting on and on about the Reds and the faggots. He says stuff like we oughta just get it over with and drop the bomb on Vietnam, and that's way fucked up.”

“That’s heavy,” Fillmore said, nodding.

There was a long silence. They both drank a little more. Sarge didn’t drink much usually, though some of the other kids did, and he was a little wobbly on his axles by now. It was past his curfew.

“Fillmore,” he said abruptly, “I’m gonna tell you something you can’t tell anyone else, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, man.”

Sarge took a deep breath. Fillmore looked sort of sweetly earnest, eyes drooping with drink and his stupid flowers shining in the moonlight. There was a long moment of silence.

Sarge breathed out, gustily. "Never mind," he said. "I'd better get home."

"Uh, okay," Fillmore said, clearly bewildered. "You know you can come by anytime, right?"

"Good night, Fillmore."

* * *

They spent more time together again after that. Not in school - in school Fillmore pretty much stuck to his crowd, and Sarge to his - but in the evenings. Sometimes they filched more of Ms. Vaughn’s oil stash, sometimes they just went for a drive. It wasn’t like there was that much to do in Radiator Springs anyway.

It was still an odd friendship, maybe especially after the passage of so many years. They argued all the time; Fillmore’s conspiracy theories clashed badly with Sarge’s faith in American democracy, and their evenings ended in insults and slammed doors as often as not.

It never stopped them from meeting up again in a night or two. Their evening talks rambled over all kinds of topics, from politics to music, ethics to physics. And gradually, they got to know sides of one another that nobody else in town really saw.

Fillmore was a pretty smart guy, despite his penchant for wacky conspiracy theories and his reputation as a deadbeat at school. He had a keen eye for human nature, and he had a lot of in-depth knowledge about science, geology and botany and stuff Sarge hardly knew anything about at all. “It’s the life of the earth, man, it’s totally intense. Nature does some crazy shit.”

Sarge, it turned out, opposed the war. “It was tactically unsound from the beginning,” he complained to Fillmore. “Not to mention that containment is a fool’s strategy.” He had real reservations about the ongoing U.S. involvement and he and his father fought about it frequently. He usually came and hung out in Fillmore’s backyard after those fights, calming down, sometimes with the aid of a little something from Ms. Vaughn’s oil cabinet.

“How come you’re still all gung-ho ‘Go, America,’ then, if you think we shouldn’t be in Vietnam?” Fillmore asked one evening.

“Just because I think _this_ war is wrong doesn’t mean they’re all wrong,” Sarge snapped. “America needs a strong military presence to defend against enemies, foreign and domestic. My family has served proudly for generations!”

Fillmore eyed him dubiously. “Foreign and domestic, huh? Like, what, John Birch and all that?”

“That’s part of the swearing-in oath for all the U.S. Military forces, Fillmore. I think it has something to do with the Civil War.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, my dad would be really pissed if I didn’t join up. And I’ve wanted to be in the Army since I was a kid. You can’t pick and choose which wars you want to fight if you’re a soldier. You go where they send you. I figure one tour of duty and I’m home, and then I can go to college or something on the G.I. Bill.”

“Yeah, and what if you _don’t_ come home?”

Sarge made a face. “I try not to think about that, Fillmore. Thanks for bringing it up.”

Spring came, and with it the tourists; traffic through Radiator Springs increased daily. The senior class disassembled all the furniture in the principal's office and re-built it, down to the last detail, in the middle of the football field. Ms. Vaughn met an English professor at the community college at a sit-in. Dr. Cornwall was all tweed upholstery and radical ideas; they started dating regularly right away. And in June, Sarge and Fillmore graduated from high school.

The day after they crossed the stage to the cheers of their classmates and proud parents, Sarge went to the local Army recruiting office and enlisted. The General went down to the V8 Café after and bought rounds for everyone to celebrate. He rolled home in high spirits, full of oil, and spent the dinner hour telling Sarge and Mrs. Carter ever more improbable stories about his own Army exploits.

Finally the General passed out in the living room, and Sarge was able to slip out of the house. He went and knocked on Fillmore’s door, but nobody answered. Light seeped from behind the curtain, and Sarge could hear the stereo playing. "Fillmore!" he yelled. He knocked again. And again. Eventually he gave up, and went back to his own house.

Fillmore successfully avoided Sarge for the rest of the week. He went to an anti-war protest in Albuquerque that Saturday and managed to get himself arrested for “disturbing the peace.” By the time Ms. Vaughn had put together the bail to get him out, Sarge was gone, off to Basic Training in Arizona.

“He said to tell you ‘goodbye,’ honey, and he’d see you when he comes back in a few months,” Ms. Vaughn said.

“I don’t _care_ if he comes back.”

“Oh, sweetie,” said his mother. “I know how hard this must be for you.”

* * *

Three months later, Sarge came back to town, painted Army green and wearing shiny new tires. The second night he was home, he showed up at Fillmore’s door.

This time, Fillmore opened it.

"Hey, I got some oil from a friend of mine," Sarge turned so Fillmore could see the cans he had stashed in his back seat. “Y’wanna go up to Plymouth Ridge tonight?”

Fillmore looked at him steadily.

"You don't have to," Sarge said. "I just thought…"

"Hang on, let me get something," Fillmore interrupted, and closed the door. In a minute, he came out again.

They drove up to the ridge in silence. It was a nice night for a drive, the stars shining clear in the cool of a New Mexico summer evening, and the crickets chirping loudly in the brush. They pulled up at the outlook - blessedly free of the couples who sometimes liked to park there to canoodle - and cracked open the oil cans before either of them spoke.

“I ship out tomorrow,” was the first thing Sarge said.

“You’re an asshole,” Fillmore said. Sarge looked at him in surprise. Fillmore didn’t say things like that; that was more Sarge’s style.

“Seriously, man, I am feeling very rageful right now. I mean, how could you do it? You’re what, gonna go _kill_ people for something you don’t even believe in? You _know_ this war is bullshit, and you’re still willing to kill and die for it?”

“It’s not that easy, and you know it,” Sarge snapped.

“Oh yeah? It looks that easy from here. If you don’t believe in it, _don’t do it_.” Fillmore was flushed, and he took a gulp of his oil. “I never really thought you would.”

“Then you weren’t listening,” Sarge said. “It’s about more than this war. It’s about my family, and my dad, and service to my country.” He took a deep swig. “Hell, they probably would have drafted me anyway. But that’s not the point. The point is that this is my choice, and I’ve got my reasons. As my friend, you should understand that.”

“And you should understand that I’m scared something’s gonna happen to you over there!”

There was a long silence.

“I’m scared too,” Sarge said. “You think I’m not?”

Fillmore tossed the empty oil can into his back seat and reached for another. He sighed. “I don’t know, Sarge. If you were as scared for yourself as I am for you, you never would have signed up.”

“Hey,” Sarge said. “I’m planning on coming home, okay?”

“You and everybody else,” Fillmore said, but he smiled just a little.

“I wish I had a few more days - one of the guys in Basic told me about an awesome drive around here I wanted to go do with you.” Sarge nudged Fillmore’s fender with a tire. “When I get back?”

“It’s a date,” Fillmore said, handing Sarge another can.

Sarge cracked it open and grinned. They drank in silence for a few minutes.

"Oh, hey, I almost forgot," Fillmore said. "I got you this key ring, man, like a going-away thing." Fillmore offered Sarge a little silver tag set with a dark-red stone that glinted in the moonlight.

"Fillmore, you know I don't wear jewelry, why are you giving me this?" Sarge said, exasperated. "_You_ wear it."

Fillmore ducked his head. "It's got a garnet in it. Garnet is, like, meant to ward travelers against misfortune and bad dreams and stuff. I figured you could wear it with your dog tags." He scuffed the dirt. "But you don't have to."

"You and your wishy-washy new-age crystals," Sarge grumbled, but he took the key ring and tucked it away anyway. “We should be getting back, though. I’ve got to get an early start tomorrow.”

They drove back in silence, but with none of the tension that had accompanied their trip up. When they got to Fillmore’s house, he said, "I'm going to miss you, man,"

"Yeah," Sarge said gruffly, and turned away, toward his own driveway. Fillmore started to let himself in.

"Wait," Sarge said. "There's something I wanted to…wait."

Fillmore turned, half-illuminated in the open doorway, and Sarge was right there, leaning in. Sarge's front bumper brushed Fillmore's - a soft glance, at first, and then a more purposeful, lingering touch before he pulled away.

Fillmore blinked, confused. "What? Wait, Sarge…"

But Sarge was already hurrying home. Fillmore called after him again, but he didn't look back.

The next morning, the whole town turned out to see Sarge off. Everyone gathered to pat him on the fender and say a few last words. The General blared the national anthem from the speaker over the store, and people waved flags and banners that said, "Good luck, Sarge!"

There was no chance for Fillmore to talk to Sarge in all the chaos. But when he broke away from the crowd and started to roll toward the interstate, Fillmore followed. A Volkswagen bus on uneven terrain is no match for a Jeep on pavement, but Fillmore gunned his engine and paced Sarge for a few hundred yards, until he couldn't keep up any more. "Come home safe, Sarge," he yelled at Sarge's retreating bumper. "Come home safe!"

* * *

Nobody knew what Sarge saw in Vietnam, or what he did. Presumably his platoon mates knew, or his commanding officers, but he never talked about it. He went away, and his occasional letters home were short and mostly about the bad food and the mosquitoes. "Give my love to everyone in Radiator Springs," he always said at the end. His mother posted the letters on the corkboard at the Café so the whole town could see them.

Sarge never wrote to Fillmore.

Fillmore drifted, bumming around at home, going to protests or marches now and then with his mom and Dr. Cornwall, or rock concerts with his old school buddies. He added abstract swirls and a peace sign to his hippie paint job and spent a lot of time going for drives in the hills around the town.

Then in October, when Sarge had been gone for a few months, there was a fire on the west end of Radiator Springs. Everyone got out safely, but several homes, including Ms Vaughn's cottage, burnt to the ground. She got enough money from the insurance to re-build, but instead she moved in with Dr. Cornwall, in his house in Albuquerque.

Fillmore stayed in Radiator Springs. He put up a tent in what had been his backyard, an Army surplus one he'd gotten at the General's store, and lived there. And he started building something. Every afternoon, rain or shine, he could be seen hammering together a strange structure on his property, right where the cottage's foundation had been. But it wasn't a house. "It's an oil derrick, man," he explained to anyone who asked. "Like, wind-powered, you know? I'm gonna make my own fuel at home, live off the land."

At the counter at the V8, people snickered and imitated Fillmore's lazy drawl. "Maaaan," said Ramón, "the oil companies are having a conspiiiiracy! I'm gonna fight the Maaan!"

Flo giggled. "You are so bad, Ramón!" she said, snapping her bar towel at him. He winked back at her and she blushed.

"What makes him think he's going to find oil on that little patch of scrub, anyway?" the Sheriff snorted. He had stopped in for a lunchtime quart and to catch up on the gossip. "Why, nobody's struck pay dirt in this part of New Mexico for years!"

They stopped laughing when Fillmore's little windmill gushed sky-high in January. His first batch of home-brewed fuel was ready for tasting by spring, and people privately conceded to one another that it wasn't bad.

"Freak juice!" the General snapped, looking out at the people gathered for the Taste-In's grand opening. He pulled the blinds closed with enough force that some of the metal slats bent. "He'll be out of business in a month! Nobody will want to drink that commie crap."

But he was wrong. Fillmore didn't put the Café out of business or anything, but the Taste-In sold a barrel or two a week to passing tourists. Fillmore made enough to keep himself in fuel, too, and by summer he had enough to start building some new-fangled yurt or something. Nobody in Radiator Springs had ever seen anything like it; he'd sent away for the plans in the mail, to some company in the back of a magazine. The town residents kept a suspicious eye on the construction as it went up.

"It's geodesic, man," Fillmore explained to the Sheriff.

"I don't care if it's _Martian_, Fillmore, building code says you need to insulate those pipes," the Sheriff said.

"Be cool, Sheriff," Fillmore said. "I dig the building code. I'll take care of it."

And he did. People in town got used to seeing the garishly-painted dome and ridiculous wooden windmill-derrick where the old cottage had once stood. After a while, they looked surprised when tourists asked about it. "Oh, that's just Fillmore," they said. "Brews a decent can of fuel, if you're into that hippie stuff."

* * *

Sarge came home in November.

There was no fanfare for his homecoming. The truth about what had happened at My Lai was all over the news, and even in Radiator Springs, people weren't so excited about the war anymore. They didn't treat him badly, but the only flag waving when he rolled into town with his duffel in the back seat, tired from travel and covered in dust, was the faded one that always hung outside the General's store.

Word spread around town, though, and by the time he had settled in and his parents took him out to the V8 Café to celebrate, most of the town had gathered there as well. It wasn't a party, but almost all of the town's residents came by their pump to say hello and welcome him back while they had dinner.

Sarge kept looking around, but Fillmore wasn't among the crowd of cars around the pumps. "Stop that fidgeting, boy!" the General snapped.

"It's his first night home, dear. Leave him alone," said Mrs. Carter.

A car backfired, up by the Wheel Well, and Sarge flinched. The General harrumphed and went back to his gas can, and Mrs. Carter looked worried. "Sarge, honey, we made up the bed in your old room for you; is there anything else you need? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Ma. The bed'll be fine." Sarge mustered up a smile for his mother. "It's good to be home."

Sarge’s eyes were drooping closed from exhaustion by the time they got back from the Café. Fillmore's weird dome was dark and silent as they drove by, and Sarge stumbled into his own bed and fell fast asleep.

Until about two a.m., when he woke up honking, shaking, short of breath and with his engine racing. He froze and listened carefully for his parents, but there was no sound; they were still asleep. Sarge crept out back.

The night air was warm, with a light breeze, and it carried the scent of sagebrush. Sarge inhaled deeply, and then almost choked when he heard someone call, “Hey there, stranger.”

He coughed and looked over toward the voice. It was Fillmore.

“I heard you honking, man, and I thought I’d come see if you were okay.”

“Yeah,” Sarge said. “I had…sometimes I have bad dreams.”

“Y’wanna come over?” Fillmore offered. “A can of oil might help you sleep.”

Sarge nodded. “Yeah,” he said. "But what are you even doing up? It's the middle of the night!"

"I don't sleep much," Fillmore shrugged. "You know, I never have." He cocked his head. "You coming?"

Sarge rolled over to Fillmore’s yard. For a moment they stood in awkward silence, and then Sarge laughed, abruptly. “Damn, it’s good to see you.”

“You too, man,” Fillmore said sincerely, ducking into the dome to bring out some oil cans. “I thought I might never…I mean, I’m totally glad you’re back.”

“I said I was planning on it, didn’t I?” Sarge gave Fillmore a lopsided smile. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”

Fillmore looked at him, and a wide grin split his face. He offered Sarge one of the cans and cracked the other open for himself.

"You've been busy," Sarge said, bumping Fillmore's fender companionably with his own. "What's this hippie tent thing you've built? What happened to the cottage? I asked my parents what you'd been up to, but my Dad just muttered something about 'freak juice' and commies."

Fillmore snickered. "Freak juice! That's a good one, man." He started telling Sarge all about the idea he'd had about the homemade fuel, the brewing methods he'd experimented with, his new business, and the construction of the new house. People didn't listen to Fillmore very often, and once he had an audience, he got really into his subject. "It's totally groovy, man, the triangular sections distribute the stress so it's more, you know, _balanced_. It makes for a really good vibe," Fillmore was explaining when the General's 6 a.m. reveille blasted out of the speakers over the store, shattering the morning calm.

Sarge jumped and hunkered low to the ground. His eyes were wide, pupils dark with fear.

Fillmore reached out, but Sarge was already relaxing, color rising in his face. "I should be getting home," he muttered.

"Hey, man, you cool?" Fillmore pulled his tire back, but he looked worried.

Sarge flicked his wipers on to scrub at his face. "Yeah, yeah. I just, I didn't realize it had gotten so late. Or early." He gave Fillmore a little salute and turned to go.

"Come over for dinner," Fillmore said. "Tonight, okay?"

Sarge nodded. He went back to his house and slept until noon, then went to help the General at the store until closing.

After his first few dubious sips of the Taste-In's organic fuel special that night, Sarge drained the can readily. "Not bad," he said to Fillmore, "but I still like it better with all the usual lead and chemical additives."

Fillmore pulled a face and Sarge made exaggerated smacking sounds. "Mmmm, MTBE!" He dodged Fillmore's half-hearted swat. "Hey, hey, what happened to all that non-violence?"

"I don't think Ghandi had to put up with anyone like you," Fillmore grumbled.

But Sarge came around most nights after that. Even when they didn't have dinner together, Fillmore often found him outside in the middle of the night, still trembling or sweating from another nightmare. Sarge didn't volunteer any information about his dreams, and Fillmore didn't ask, but they went for a lot of drives in the dark, their tires on the pavement the only sound save the crickets.

Sometimes they talked, and sometimes they didn't. Often they just sat and gazed at the scenery from whatever look-out point they'd found to stop at, parked so close their rims touched one another. The rubber of their tires pressed together comfortingly.

Sarge knew people were talking about him; the whispers stopped abruptly every time he came into the Café and his mother kept giving him worried looks and asking if he was okay. "Everyone treats me like I'm a different person," he said to Fillmore one night, exasperated. They were out on Plymouth Ridge again, drinking oil and enjoying the evening quiet. "I'm the same person I've always been, goddamnit. So I don't go out as much. So what?"

"That's what I told them, man," Fillmore said, nodding wisely.

"Yeah, well, you always did know me best," Sarge said, staring out at the anvil-shaped mesa that marked the town. He sighed. "C'mon, let's head back down."

As Sarge turned to go, Fillmore saw a glint of silver. “Hey, is that…”

Sarge looked where Fillmore was looking. “Oh, yeah. Your keychain.” He scowled at Fillmore. “You wouldn’t believe the shit I got from the other guys in my platoon for wearing jewelry. Couldn’t you have given me something less shiny?”

Fillmore smiled. "You wore it."

"Of course I wore it, idiot. You gave it to me, didn't you?" Sarge sounded gruff, but he looked away, and although the moonlight made it hard to tell, there might have been a blush rising on his cheeks.

Fillmore ducked his head to hide his smile. "I'm glad."

"Yeah, well. Sometimes when things got bad, I really needed something to remind me of home." It was the most Sarge had said about his time in Vietnam since he'd gotten back, and Fillmore looked at him intently. Sarge was staring out at the mesa again.

"Hey," Fillmore said, and Sarge turned to look at him. "I really missed you, you know?"

This time it was Fillmore who leaned in, slowly enough that Sarge could have backed up, could have cleared his throat and said something to change the subject. He didn't. The kiss this time was softer, more intent, and Sarge kissed Fillmore back without hesitation. After the first sweet press of their bumpers, Fillmore backed off, but Sarge kissed him again, wilder this time, and Fillmore responded with equal enthusiasm.

Several minutes later, they broke apart, engines overheated and breathing hard. They stared at each other for a moment, silently. Then Fillmore said, "Whoa," in a blissfully happy voice, and giggled, and Sarge snorted.

"Yeah, I missed you too, you big freak," he said.

They went back down the mountain, but they stayed at Fillmore's dome that night, and many nights thereafter.

"I don't know why he's spending so much time with that hippie Vaughn boy," the General growled.

"He's an adult, dear," Mrs. Carter said, smiling. "I'm sure he knows what he's doing."

The General snorted.

"Eat your dinner, dear," Mrs. Carter said.

In April of the next year, Fillmore hung a "Closed for Peace" sign on the Taste-In and drove to Washington D.C. with Sarge, to watch him throw his medals and discharge papers on the steps of the Capitol along with eight hundred other veterans, as part of a protest organized by the VVAW.

Sarge threw his stuff on the pile and drove back to where Fillmore was waiting for him. Together they watched the other vets add their war mementos, one by one. He leaned into Fillmore's side.

"Hey," Fillmore said. "You're a good man, you know?"

"Don't embarrass me, Fillmore," Sarge said, but he smiled.

* * *

People noticed, of course. It was Radiator Springs, people always noticed when things changed.

They whispered about it over a quart or two at the Café, though never when the General was in earshot. Some thought it was a scandal, and some thought it was sweet. The new girl said it was perfectly normal, but she was from California, so nobody listened to her.

But Sarge and Fillmore paid the whispers no mind. They must have known, must have seen the heads turning as they drove down the street, but they went on about their business as they always had, griping at each other about their clashing musical taste, disagreeing about trivia, and arguing over politics.

The war ended. Construction of Interstate 40 continued, and the flow of tourists along Route 66 slowed to a trickle. Sarge's parents retired and moved to Arizona, but Sarge stayed in Radiator Springs. He renamed the General’s store and took over as sole proprietor.

The neon downtown flickered out, letter by letter, and the brightly painted signs began to fade.

And after a while, nobody whispered about it anymore at all.


End file.
